In the retail industry, a retail establishment commonly uses various types of display structures to present products to customers for purchase. These display structures both support the product for display while simultaneously indicating to the customer the product price. Example display structures include shelf-type structures and rack/hook-type structures.
In general, shelf-type display structures display the product by resting it on a shelving unit raised off of the floor. Each shelf display structure includes a price label support that supports a price label. The price label provides pricing and product information for the products stacked on the shelves. In general, shelf-type display structures provide a channel price label support that runs the length of the shelf such that price labels are inserted into the channel in a top down manner.
Rack/hook-type display structures generally display products by hanging the products from a rack or pegged hook. Typically, each rack or pegged hook supports a sleeve price label support wherein the price label is inserted into an opening in the side of the sleeve.
Often, retailers desire to highlight certain products that are being displayed. For example, a retailer may want to bring certain products to the attention of the customer based on the fact that they were advertised in a certain media format, such as a catalog, a mailer or a commercial. In addition, a retailer may want to highlight certain products that have certain characteristics not possessed by similarly displayed products, such as products that are on sale. Often, retailers highlight these select products by enhancing the visual appearance of the price labels by adding additional visual elements such as tags that indicate that the product is on sale or that the product was featured in an advertisement. These tags are supported by the display structure and typically extend beyond the normal price label so that they draw more attention.
With the variety of different types of display structures, enhancing the visual appearance of the price label can become labor intensive. In particular, because different display structures support price labels differently, such as a top opening channel price label support versus a side opening sleeve price label support, and because different price label supports have different shapes, separate tags had to be designed and constructed for each type of price label support found in a retail establishment. This greatly increased the cost of forming new tags. In addition, it can be difficult for a large retailer that has numerous retail outlets or stores to know how many of each type of price label support is found in each store. As a result, it is difficult to know how many of each type of tag to send to each store.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.